Give Us A Push

Today I thought we could explore motivators that work. How do we know they work? Because they have worked for us in the past. In my experience these fall into two categories.

• Things we didn’t want to do, but did anyway.
• Things we wanted to do, and stepped out of our comfort zone for.

So lets start with a list of things we didn’t want to do, but did anyway. And let’s not stop there. I think it would be really super helpful to find out why we did it anyway. What was it that gave us that added push?

For example:

• I didn’t want to go to work Wednesday morning, but I went anyway because my daughter was counting on me, she needed me, and she would have been really disappointed and upset with me if I had let her down.
• I wanted to go to a concert with my granddaughter, so I stepped out of my comfort zone … bought Lady Gaga tickets (scary – I’m not sure why), agreed to drive downtown (yikes!), and eat at an unknown restaurant (way out of my comfort zone) … Why? Because I didn’t want to disappoint her. And also because I found someone who was willing to help pick out the best tickets, do the driving, and find a good restaurant.

Interestingly, for me, both examples have to do with making someone else happy. What does this tell me? That if I can find a way to include someone else’s happiness or comfort, I can get myself do quite a few things that would otherwise be really difficult for me to make myself do.

A Few More Ideas:

Other things that might motivate me to do what I don’t want to do might include:

• Desperation
• Fear
• Anger

Other motivators that might push me out of my comfort zone into new experiences might include:

• Curiosity
• A Challenge (for example… if someone said “You can’t …”)
• Too much coffee…. LOL

So, guys… Let’s get started on our lists, and see what we can find out about what gets us up and out of bed in the morning, and keeps us keeping on even when we’d rather not.